78 Scientific American, April 2019 Illustration by Matt CollinsANTI GRAVITY
THE ONGOING SEARCH FOR
FUNDAMENTAL FARCESSteve Mirsky has been writing the Anti Gravity column since
a typical tectonic plate was about 36 inches from its current location.
He also hosts the Scientific American podcast Science Talk.Cold Comfort
A look back at winter’s wacky weather
By Steve MirskyBy the time you read these words, winter’s grip should have
mostly loosened in the Northern Hemisphere. But at its worst,
this winter was brutally cold. Here in New York City on January
31, the low temperature snuck down to two degrees Fahrenheit.
In Chicago, it was also two degrees—but that was the high. The
low plummeted to –20. Which was two degrees warmer than the
low the day before. And the wind chill in the Windy City was –51
or –52, depending on which weather station was crying out in
agony. As comedian Lewis Black once said of Minnesota (which
was similarly afflicted in January), “That is not weather. That’s
an emergency condition.”
When the forecast warned us a couple of days earlier that Arc
tic air was looming, the president issued a sincere and helpful
tweet, which ended with: “What the hell is going on with Global
Waming [sic]? Please come back fast, we need you!” And being
the most powerful man on Earth, he was successful in his polite
imploration. On February 4 the Chicago temperature reached
51 degrees. And the next day the Big Apple basked in a sunny 65.
The Arctic is warming at twice the rate as the global average.
This heat can help disrupt the polar vortex, a steady wind pattern
that usually stays focused on circling the North Pole. A wobbly jet
stream then runs into a brick wall of that Arctic air, which is still
pretty frosty by human standards, and both wind up hundreds of
miles farther south than they usually belong. And for a few days
we in the Deep South—by which I mean
Chicago or New York compared with
the Arctic—freeze our butts off. But less
than a week after this most recent vor
tex disruption, thanks to some warm
air coming up from the real South, I
was walking outside without a coat. On
a date when the average high tempera
ture is about 40.
Like so much else we are currently
living through, this kind of thermome
ter ride is not normal. Or it didn’t used
to be, anyway.
Of course, scientists have been
wam ing—sorry, warning—that warm
ing can have these very effects. Climate
change deniers may sneer, “So when
it’s warmer than usual, that’s because
of global warming. And when it’s cold
er, that’s also because of global warm
ing?” Well, yes. And anybody who just
can’t accept these kinds of seemingly
paradoxical situations needs to reflect
on the expression “freezer burn.”
In the midst of this wacky weather
came Groundhog Day. And I happened on a 2010 interview with
noted climatologist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University,
in which she pointed out: “It’s been mathematically proven that
it’s impossible to predict the evolution of a chaotic system like
weather for more than two weeks. As everyone knows, though,
the laws of physics don’t apply to groundhogs.” She also re
marked that for groundhog weather forecasting to be truly sci
entific, its “findings would need to be published in scientific
journals such as the Journal of Groundhog Predictions where
they would be reviewed for accuracy by other groundhogs.” How
Hayhoe could be understood with her tongue so securely embed
ded in her cheek is a scientific mystery.
In a completely unrelated development, alligators eat stones.
As writer Jake Buehler explains in the journal Science, it’s long
been known that the beasties dine on the rocks. Favored explana
tions have included the incidental swallowing of mineral while eat
ing animal or vegetable and the ingestion of stones to help mash
up the meat in their digestive tracts—akin to what many birds do.
But a new explanation for this gastrolith activity has ap
peared. Tests with seven captive American alligators found that
when they had taken in a bunch of rocks, they were able to hide
underwater 88 percent longer. The weight appears to work
against the tendency to float back to the surface when the lungs
are filled with air. Because if you’re going to successfully cope
with the laws of physics, it’s far better to have stones in your
stomach than rocks in your head.JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE
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